dimanche 13 mai 2012

National Park Francois Peron - Shark bay

Francois Peron
National Park, so named after the French zoologist Peron, who arrived in Shark
Bay in 1801 on the Geographe under Captain Baudin. Baudin led the expedition to
the Great South Land, accompanied by Captain Hamelin in the Naturaliste.
Peron’s observations during his visits to the area proved to be of great
importance to the natural history of the region.

The national park
covers 52 500 ha of the northern most tip of the Peron Peninsula. It was once a
sheep station developed in the 1880’s; but was purchased by the State Government
in 1990 to create the park.

The access to the park is by 4WD only.

At the entrance, you
must deflate tires.

It’s time to hit the sand!

A guy actually deflated my tires
for me (he must of thought I was some dumb blond in a 4WD, but nice anyway!). He
told us that the track was really boggy and that you had to keep ploughing
though in low gear not to get bogged in.

This kind of freaked me out a bit. The
sand was so thick in places! And I was so scared that I would get stuck!

This
fear made me drive stupidly. I stuck in low gear the hole time, for nearly 40km.
The jeep started to overheat.

I just blasted hot air into the car to try and
cool her down. It worked a bit, but the boiling hot air was burning me. I felt
like I was skidding everywhere. On every bump I thought that I would get stuck.

Even worse, the boys couldn’t wait for me because they would be driving in a
too lower gear for their Toyota (so was I actually). I wasn’t having fun at
all. I was on my own and scared. I just kept on shouting ‘come on little jeep!
You can do it!!’ In the end, I got fed up and stopped at a camping area to have
some lunch.

I knew that the guys were waiting for me at the end of the track.

I
really hesitated about continuing. Once having gathered all my courage, I set
off again.

This time I was confident. I wasn’t scared anymore! I was in gear 3,
flying over bumps! The gear was right so the jeep wasn’t overheating. I was having
so much fun!!